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By Stephen Cheney
The circling stones
Jut jagged from the green field,
They are the size of men,
Shadows of long ago.
Thus the upward teeth of the blackened dragon
Await the new world; but it is not yet.
Beneath the turf
Rest ruins of armour,
Only the jagged edges cut through the grass.
Lords the armour once encased,
Now the armour only bones embrace.
Their swords are scattered,
I know not where,
Some stolen as treasure in far off lands.
When heavy the rain the moss does grow
Slippery for fingers run down the dragon’s teeth.
The spell cast down by sheets of rain
Shroud all into sameness.
All have shadows in the shadow world.
When the sun thrusts its sword through the clouds
Its kisses fondly finger the fine detail
Tattooed on the face of every thing living or dead.
Too long and those kisses burn and the rising heat
Waves a shimmer-spell in the air,
Drawing upward the vision of the mind.
Lost in time are the battles of long ago
Only their shadows enlarged in the tales of bards.
Leaves in streams, glories swept into oblivion;
Trampled underfoot the dreams of warriors
By the tread of metal and human feet.
Although here is quiet, new battles of the day
Afar rage and fire, flaming dragons.
No lessons learned.
The ruins of armour and bones
Add to the height of burial mounds,
Welts on the skin of the Earth.
If enough are slaughtered then men
Memories will fade as did dragons
Called dinosaurs of ancient ancient times.
In the immensity of time
The stones still remain,
The jagged dragon’s teeth
Jutting from the jaws of the Earth.
They signal to the stars that there was
Once, here, a battle to rule supreme.
The stones remain stiff from waiting,
Washed by the sun, washed by the rain.
Some have tattoos of letters upon them,
But their language is lost.
Never to be read again.
What lessons are learned?
If we keep crippling ourselves
How will we ever run amidst the stars?
(Image: Stone Circle in Scotland[Ed] - BBC via Google Images)
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Hey Cheney,
ReplyDeleteBeautiful poem: congrats, once again.
Why do you like the dragon so much: is it you totem animal? Or is it because it represents fire, thus war?
As usual, I think this poem has a double message and this time I will make a huge effort to understand it.
Well done. Cheers
Hi Max, I suppose that I identify very much with the Dragon, a common emblem in many cultures. Perhaps it is branches of family from the Norse, dragon lovers of Norway and the Red Dragon of Wales. I teach a Dragon Tai Chi form covering breathing, mind controls and combat. There is a circle in it also, and dragons amongst men. I am into dinosaurs and the tree of the evolution of life. The dragon represents many things, a most interesting psychology. An ability to morph the mind. Morph from the Greek god Morpheus, creator of dreams. A mind shifter. And of course there is the pearl, the focus of every dragon. Tic-Tacs. The dragon is a symbol of magical change. All change is magical, as is movement, as is Time, as is existing at all, as is understanding anything. We are creatures and all creatures that survive never stop evolving, changing, spreading wings, flaming to new evolutionary heights. There is a spiritual mist in all things, dimly seen. When you see deeply into something you feel its essence, you sense its spirit, its magic, its dragon, its consciousness.
DeleteThe poem is about the tragedy of man. A thirster for glory, battle and dominance, to end up forgotten in the dirt; and the life and death cycle goes on. If we are to survive long-term as a species, we need to get off this birth-planet, which has an eventual use-by-date and expand our beings amongst the planets of the stars. To do that we must expend our ever dwindling resources on space-travel. If such resources are ever wasted on wars, then we will fail. The projecting shards of our armour, our bones, our cemetery stones, will be our dragon’s teeth. Wearing away, eventually there will be nothing here to read by any visiting creatures from other star systems. Man was, and if man is not, then man might as well have never been. We need to get our act together, before we enter our last act. Too many nations where murder of other nations is allowable and common. We need to be one all-inclusive nation, or we will end up the figment of our imagination.
In the night you can imagine dragons around you and fear their shapes. But you need not fear a dragon, until you feel its breath. Dragons, the essence, breathe. Atoms are inanimate, until they join in dragon-like spirals and move as life. Movement is a form of breathing, as waves of electromagnetic energy, in their progress through spacial dimensions, move in and out as fields of force.
Why the selection of a Magical Spot?
ReplyDeleteThe Dragons, or mysterious forces of Nature, are all around us, but some objects or symbols represent the concept more clearly. The Stone circles, found throughout Europe represent the Celtic or Druidic concept and understanding of nature. In their circles of stone, and circles of oak trees, they held their native rites. Their last priests died there fighting an invading enemy whether Roman or Christian. One of their last stands in their circles was on the island of Anglesey (island of Angels) in north Wales. I link the projecting stones like cemetery markers, like the teeth of giant dragons, to the scattered battlefield ruins where the armour and remains of the dead project from the soil until worn away or covered in time by earths blown by the wind. For the Native Americans, dancing around a camp fire, each man painted on a canvas or cave wall is as a megalith; stones in a circle, frozen in time and place; they once moved when the dancers represented them, but now move no more.
DeleteThe human mind projects images and concepts on whatever it sees. It makes assumptions and imaginings, a dragon mist forming shapes from out of the dungeon depths of the subconscious mind. In the night when you stare at bumps on the walls they seem to form into faces. In the forest dark there are no monsters glaring or moving or noising as those monsters our mind projects into that inky deep. The clouds we stare at seem to form animals; the stars we stare at seem to form mythological constellations. We project whatever is within us out onto the outside world of reality. For we cannot know reality except by manipulating the elements within our own selves. We know us, all else is a strangeness. You can only know other things at best as well as you know yourself. So the Reality outside is never really known except by the tentacles of our senses. The blind man’s hand on a face. It is we who weave magic swirls in our minds to paint the alien shapes that lie outside of our bodies. We are the virtual magicians in this physical realm and the existence of things other than ourselves is amazing (our own existence is also amazing). We touch the dragon of Nature at different parts and in brief moments and try to understand the vast mystery that lies beyond our own essence.
When soldiers win wars, impossible wars, magic is involved somehow. At least, that's what I think!
ReplyDeleteInformation and Determination win wars.
DeleteI wouldn't say magic nor information in determination alone. In the case of Israel for instance, having Hashem on our side wins wars.
Delete